Wine Industry Pros to Address Packaging

Lisa Ehrlich, vice president of Marketing for Purple Wine Co., the company behind Avalon CAB (seen above before and after rebranding) will speak at the Wines & Vines Packaging Conference on Aug. 20.

Napa, Calif.—Purple Wine Co. of Graton, Calif., has used innovative packaging as a key ingredient for its success with fast-growing brands like Avalon CAB and Four Vines. The company’s vice president of marketing, Lisa Ehrlich, will share details of Purple’s packaging decisions during the Wines & Vines Packaging Conference on Aug. 20 in Napa.

Ehrlich is one of numerous wine industry professionals who will speak about their packaging successes and failures during the one-day conference and trade show in the former Copia building at 500 First St. in Napa. In a session titled “Advances in Labels and Screen Printing,” two veterans from the printing and ink businesses—Michael Bittner of MB Graphic Machinery and Bob Nersesian of SunChemical—will join her to provide more technical details.

Another speaker recently added is Maureen Downey, founder of Chai Consulting in San Francisco and an expert on collectible wines and high-priced counterfeits. Through her long experience with auction houses and as a wine appraiser, Downey has become a highly sought after consultant on rare wines, with her credits including testifying for the government in the successful prosecution of Rudy Kurniawan for creating and selling counterfeit Bordeaux first growths and other rarities.

Downey’s presentation will complement a talk by David Pearson, CEO of Opus One, on that estate’s use of anti-counterfeiting packaging technology to deter fraud in the Asian market and elsewhere.

Immersion in packagingWines & Vines created the daylong conference for winemakers, winery executives, operations managers and marketers to immerse themselves in the fast-changing subject of wine packaging. The educational sessions include presentations, formal tastings and the ability to touch the latest bottles, labels, closures, capsules and cartons.

Five conference sessions, two tastings of closure trials, a light breakfast and full lunch are included in the efficient Wednesday schedule. In addition to full registration for $195, a $35 pass for exhibits and lunch only has been added.

A trade show involving 37 wine packaging supplier companies takes place simultaneously in the same building for attendees to explore during four breaks in the day’s program.

The immersion experience includes a tasting bar featuring wines in a variety of packaging types, a lunchtime opportunity to open and use various package formats and a post-conference reception with a tasting of kegged wines.

Peer guidance
Many of the speakers, like the registrants, work in wineries, and they are leaders in adopting new packaging supplies and technology to help protect and successfully sell their wines. The conference approach is wherever practical to enlist experienced users of packaging innovations to guide their peers.

Winemakers Doug Fletcher (Terlato Wines) and Danielle Cyrot (CADE Winery) will lead tastings of their exhaustive trials with various closures. The winemaker from Don Sebastiani & Sons, Greg Kitchens, will speak about preparing different styles of wine for bag in box, screwcap, cork and other package types.

An industry screwcap entrepreneur and trained winemaker, Tim Keller, will speak not about screwcaps but about better bottling practices for screwcaps. A noted package designer, David Scheumann of CF Napa, will speak about how wineries can get the best service from designers, and so on.

The $195 registration price includes all conference sessions, one closures tasting breakout, a light breakfast, catered lunch, hosted tastings and reception. A $35 pass is also available for access to exhibits and lunch only. To view the day’s schedule, please click here. Register by calling Tina Vierra at Wines & Vines at (415) 453-9700, ext. 102.